


Inside Woman

by weakinteraction



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. References, Cunnilingus, Dom/sub Play, F/F, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Heist, Strap-Ons, Undercover Missions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-06 05:15:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19055956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weakinteraction/pseuds/weakinteraction
Summary: Monica Rambeau, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., receives a very special assignment.





	Inside Woman

**Author's Note:**

  * For [saiditallbefore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saiditallbefore/gifts).



"Monica!" _Of course_ Mom saw her straight away. She disengaged herself from the huddle of people she was talking to and came over to give her a big hug. "You came!"

"Of course I came, Mom, it's your--"

"My birthday," Mom said, cutting Monica off before she could mention an age. "I wasn't sure if you'd be able to get the time."

"I had leave owing," Monica said with a shrug.

"And you used it to come and spend time at another S.H.I.E.L.D. facility," Mom said. She hugged Monica again. "You're a _good_ daughter. So, how's San Francisco?"

"Too cold," Monica said. "Except when it's too hot. But ... it has its advantages."

Mom grinned. "Oh, I bet it does."

"Stop it, Mom."

One of the women Mom had just been talking to came over. "You're Monica, right? We've heard _all_ about you."

"Whatever she told you, it's sixty per cent true. At best."

The woman extended a hand. "Melinda May," she said.

"Nice to meet you, Agent May," Monica said, even while she was thinking _Holy shit, the Cavalry_.

When May had wandered off again, Monica said, "I'm the lowest level agent in this room by about a million miles, aren't I?"

"Oh, totally," Mom said.

"Not helping, Mom."

"What do you want me to say? Melinda's just like me, we both fly desks now? You know the stories."

"Still not helping."

"You're the only person here who's my daughter," she said. "And don't forget, everyone here was Level 1 once. Even if for some of them it was a very long time ago." 

As if to prove the point, the doors opened again behind her and none other than Director Fury himself walked in.

* * *

The next hour or so passed in a blur of introductions, the sort of carefully compartmentalised small talk that avoided revealing anything that might be classified, and Mom being embarrassing. Mostly the latter, if Monica was honest.

So it was _almost_ a relief when a deep voice from behind her said, "Agent Trouble, can I _trouble_ you for a moment of your time?"

"Uh, sure," Monica said. It was ridiculous to feel intimidated by someone who'd been a family friend for more than half her life, but in a work context it was hard not to be.

He nodded towards a side office, and Monica followed him in.

"So, what, is this where you're hiding the cake? You want me to be the one to bring it out?"

Fury reached into his inside pocket and put a small picture down on the desk. A young woman, blonde. Pretty, even if Monica didn't really want to admit it to herself. "Do you know this woman?" Fury said.

"Uncle Nick, did Mom put you up to this because I won't let her set me up on any more dates?"

There was a moment of terrible quiet. "I'm going to let you get away with calling me 'Uncle Nick' because there's no one around to hear, and there are reasonable grounds to think that you might be mistaking this for a social occasion, it being your mother's party and all."

"And that you know that I know that you can break my arm in three places just by looking at it or whatever, I get it," Monica said.

"Four," he said.

"Sorry, _Director Fury_." She allowed herself just a tiny twitch of a smile as she added, "Don't forget that Mom and I are the only ones who know what really happened to your eye, though."

"Oh, believe me, I decided a _long_ time ago that I was better off having the Rambeau women on the inside of my organisation for a whole number of reasons," he said.

"One is a whole number."

"What?"

"Mathematically, one is a whole number. You said 'a whole number of reasons' like it was 'a lot of reasons', but what you really meant was that that one reason was enough."

"Well, you certainly aren't reminding me of any others right now," he said, with just the smallest hint of a glare in his eye. "Now, are you going to listen to your briefing, or what?"

"My briefing?"

Fury nodded back at the picture. "Do you know her?"

"Don't think so, no," Monica said. "Should I?"

Fury pulled out another picture and put it down next to the first one: a grainy CCTV image from a high angle. The same woman, her face mostly obscured by a baseball cap, walking along the sidewalk past-- "That's my building," she said. "Our building. The San Francisco facility."

"Correct," Fury said.

"So who is she?"

"She is part of a criminal organisation that intends to attempt to steal the prototype that you are part of the team responsible for guarding," Fury said.

"So you want me to ... what, arrest her?"

Fury sighed. "If I wanted her arrested, I would have sent Agent Garber an e-mail," he said. "No, I want you to help her."

"Sure," Monica said. "That makes perfect sense."

Fury pulled out one more picture, this time in a format Monica definitely recognised: an agent's standard S.H.I.E.L.D. file photo. It was the same woman again, though her hair was quite different: longer, straighter. "This is Agent 13, one of our best new undercover operatives. She has infiltrated the gang and been living under deep cover with them for over half a year."

"And you want me to help her?"

"These guys are small time, relatively speaking," Fury said. "They must have a buyer; we want to find out who that is."

"But without something for the buyer to buy ..."

"Now you're catching on."

"So what, I'm supposed to be the inside woman?"

"I'll get a signal to Agent 13 through the appropriate channels," Fury said. "Once she knows you're in the loop, she'll make contact. Let her ... recruit you. You'll probably have to meet other members of the organisation at some point. Let them think you're disaffected, looking for new opportunities. I heard you earlier, it shouldn't be too difficult."

"Oh, come on, you know that everyone moans about everything to avoid talking about anything they shouldn't."

"'The most unbelievably boring ass assignment I've ever had'?" Fury said. She _had_ described the San Francisco job to one of Mom's friends that way.

"Wait," Monica said. "Did I get my current assignment--"

"Your 'unbelievably boring ass' current assignment?"

"--because you knew that months later I'd be here at Mom's party and you could brief me in person? When I'm not officially here from a S.H.I.E.L.D. point of view, I'm on my time off, so anyone who was monitoring such things wouldn't realise ..."

"I can't possibly comment on your speculation," Fury said. "But I _do_ have a reputation to maintain. Fury, the guy who's always got a scheme inside a scheme, wheels within wheels, and at least two different back up plans for every eventuality." He turned serious again. "The only other person who knows about any of this is Dr Jensen. When you tell her 'lightspeed', she'll know to swap the prototype for a dummy, ready for it to be stolen."

"Lightspeed?"

"Lightspeed," Fury said. "Call it old times' sake."

"Agent Garber doesn't know?"

"Agent Garber doesn't know," Fury said. "And it's going to stay that way."

"Understood."

"Now, are we going to go back to the party?" Fury opened up the middle drawer of a filing cabinet; instead of the expected cavalcade of drop files, there was a birthday cake, candles already embedded in it -- though only a few, Monica noted with relief; Mom would have been furious if they'd the one-for-every-year thing. Fury pulled it out of the drawer and extracted a lighter from his pocket, lighting them quickly and efficiently.

"So you _did_ bring me in here to bring out the cake," Monica said.

Fury kept the lighter out a little longer, used it to set fire to the pictures of Agent 13 that he'd shown her before dropping them into a small metal trashcan. "Wheels within wheels, Agent, wheels within wheels."

* * *

She'd been back in San Francisco a week and a half before anything happened.

It was a Saturday night, and she was out again: a tiny little bar squeezed into the basement of a building on a side street in the Mission District. The floor was always sticky, and at the weekend the music was too loud, but people knew her here. Well enough to know when she wanted company, and when she wanted to be left alone.

"I'll have what she's having," came a voice to her side as someone slid up onto the empty stool next to her.

She glanced up, ready to make the new arrival fully aware that she was in "leave me alone" mode. And that was when she realised who it was: Agent 13. She was a little taller than Monica had expected, and her hair, which had been almost entirely hidden by the baseball cap in the picture of her in her undercover identity, was in short bouncy curls.

"And you? You want another one?"

"Sure," Monica said.

Agent 13 made a weird little gesture with her fingers to indicate to the bartender that she should pour Monica another as well.

"Thanks, Susie," Monica said.

"Cheers," Agent 13 said, clinking her glass against Monica's.

"Right," Monica said.

Agent 13 took a sip, made a face for just a fraction of a second, and then pretended to like it. The perils of undercover work, Monica supposed. Monica smiled at her, then knocked hers back in one go.

"You wanna dance?" Agent 13 said.

Two minutes ago, the answer would definitely have been _No_. "Sure, why not?"

The small dance floor was packed, forcing everyone close together. Not that there was anything wrong with that in the right circumstances. Agent 13 led Monica right into the middle of the throng. To talk, they had to lean in towards each other's ears and, even then, they were practically yelling to be heard at all.

"They're here," was the first thing Agent 13 said.

Monica glanced around: the dance floor was packed enough that unless Agent 13's co-conspirators were right here next to them, they had no hope of seeing or hearing what they were up to.

"What's the plan?" Monica said.

"It needs to look natural."

"What does?"

"Getting you!"

"What does 'look natural' mean?"

Agent 13 replied with a kiss. Monica could taste the vodka on her lips, and smell her perfume, and doing this here, now, in these circumstances, in this place, really shouldn't have had even a hope of being magical, and yet, here they were, kissing, and for a moment all the complexities of the situation burned away to nothing, and all that mattered was that they were here, kissing.

"What's your name?" Monica asked when they broke off.

"I'm called Hannah," came the reply. Monica noted the careful wording.

"Monica," Monica said.

"I know!"

The next song was more energetic; they pulled apart slightly and so couldn't talk properly any longer. "Hannah" was pretty good, though Monica had the feeling that she was the sort of person who'd learned some sort of "proper" dancing -- ballet, or maybe tap -- and was adapting what she knew when she got out on the floor. They carried on through one more song, but then Agent 13 seemed to decide that they had done enough for the night to be convincing. Monica found herself slightly disappointed.

Monica noticed that as she left, two women who had been sat on the short side of the bar counter -- not far from where she'd been all night until "Hannah" had made her entrance -- got up and followed her out. They'd been there since before she had had arrived, Monica realised. So "Hannah" and the gang must have had her under surveillance for a while, and realised that this was where she came more often than not.

"Interesting night?" Susie asked, as she poured Monica another shot.

"Yeah," Monica said. "Yeah. As it turned out, it was."

* * *

Monica spent the next week resisting the urge to look Agent 13 -- "Hannah" -- up on the computer at work. There were plenty of reasons not to, but she had to recite them to herself over and over: she didn't have the clearance for that sort of thing anyway; the records had almost certainly been wiped from the live system before sending her undercover; and, whether she was successful or not, the attempt would come with a high risk of drawing attention.

She didn't see Dr Jensen all that often, but when she did, she got the sense that she was being studied almost as intently as one of her experimental rigs. Probably it was just that Jensen was as nervous as she was, waiting for Monica to give the signal. But there was something unnerving about her gaze, all the same.

So she kept working at her job of helping to maintain the security of the facility, even while she was pondering exactly how the gang Agent 13 was embedded in might be planning to penetrate it. The labs were the highest security zone, and you had to pass through three separate cordons to get there, each of them equipped with biometric scanners and able to be locked down in an instance if the system thought anything was awry.

It would be a tough one ... if they didn't have an inside woman. Not that they did, yet; not exactly. She wondered what the next stage in Agent 13's "recruitment" of her was going to be.

* * *

Monica decided not to go back to the bar the next weekend; she probably wouldn't have anyway, she told herself. But something about knowing that they'd known she'd be there creeped her out. And it didn't hurt to be a little bit unpredictable.

When "Hannah" appeared in the convenience store on Sunday morning when Monica had gone out to get laundry detergent, though, it became clear they must be getting serious. And the timetable must be moving up.

"Which is better?" she asked, holding up two cartons of Welch's: one purple, one white.

Monica raised an eyebrow. "We're doing this now?"

"You weren't there for the other thing last night, so, yeah, we're doing this now," Agent 13 said. "Which is better?" She dropped her voice to a stage whisper. "The other thing would have been fun though."

Monica reached past her to the shelf, to pick out a huge carton of Sunny Delight. " _This_ is better," she said. "I mean, not better _for_ you. But better." She scooped up the two cartons of Welch's and thrust the Sunny D in her direction, taking advantage of the moment of being close to whisper, "Are they here?"

Agent 13's eyes darted momentarily in the direction of the CCTV camera in the corner of the store. They must be tapped into it, watching from afar; there'd be no sound, though.

"Soon?" Monica asked.

"I should get your number," Agent 13 said.

"Oh? Did I enjoy last Saturday that much?"

"Let's say you did." She smiled. "I think you did."

"I don't have a pen," Monica said.

"Where were you going to write? On the label of my Sunny Delight carton?" Agent 13 pulled out her iPhone and tapped intently at it. "There, put it in here."

Monica typed in her number.

"I'll be in touch," she said. "We should go on a date."

* * *

They ended up going out that night. And three of the next four. "Hannah" didn't break out of her role at all, and Monica was left unsure how much of what she was seeing was performance and how much was just the way she always was. She was friendly, outgoing, and, when she wanted to be, entirely outrageous.

It was on the next night that Monica took her back to her place.

"My place is secure," Monica said, once the door was locked and all the blinds shut. "No bugs. I checked specially."

"Uh huh," Agent 13 said.

"Is everything going to plan?"

"They're very pleased. They'll be delighted that we're ... well, that I'm here."

"Do you want to chill out? Watch some TV?"

She shook her head, minutely. "No," she said. "No, I don't."

And she pulled Monica towards her, kissing her. Monica broke off. "There's no surveillance. We don't have to--"

"I know," she said. "I _want_ to."

"Oh," Monica said. "Well, in that case ..." She pulled "Hannah" in close, pulling urgently at her clothes.

"Are you sure you should be doing this? A straitlaced S.H.I.E.L.D. agent associating with a dangerous criminal?"

"What should I be doing? Arresting you?"

"If you want," came the reply.

Monica took her wrists in her hands and pushed her up against the wall. "Like this?"

"Exactly like this."

Monica kissed her again, keeping one hand holding her wrist in place while the other went back to removing her clothing. Soon, "Hannah" was completely naked, and, Monica noticed, already very turned on. She pushed her hand up against her mound, feeling the wetness. "Hannah" squirmed and moaned.

Monica pulled back, then led her away from the wall and marched her to the bedroom. She pushed her down onto the bed and started kissing her again, "Hannah" leaning up into them eagerly. Monica reached into the nightstand for her handcuffs -- if "Hannah" was surprised at their presence, she didn't show any signs of it -- and secured her hands above her head, the handcuffs threaded between the bedposts.

"Oh no," she said. "Now you can do whatever you like with me."

Monica put her hand to her cunt once more, this time sliding a finger inside, just for a moment. The groan "Hannah" gave out was exquisite.

Monica stepped off the bed and took off her clothes with more haste than efficiency. Once she was naked too, she climbed back on, but this time straddled the girl, reaching down to tease her nipples, put her thumb in her mouth -- she received a playful bite at that -- and stroke her hair.

Eventually, Monica shuffled further up her body, until she was positioned directly over the other girl's mouth. She lowered herself down and "Hannah" needed no encouragement to begin licking her. When she began to fuck her with her tongue, Monica arched her back and had to reach back with one arm to place it between the other girl's breasts to angle herself just right for her tongue to be able to stretch as far as possible.

All too quickly, Monica came, collapsing down and grabbing hold of the bedposts herself. "Wow," she said, inadequately. She shuffled back a little so she could look "Hannah" in the face properly. "Wow," she said again. She took a deep breath and asked, "Do you want me to release you?"

"Not yet," came the reply. "You can do _whatever_ you like with me."

Well, that certainly had possibilities. Monica got up again, and rummaged around in the base of her wardrobe until she found what she was looking for.

When she turned around, "Hannah" had an extremely gratifying expression of eagerness at the sight of her strap-on.

She climbed back onto the bed, quickly verified that "Hannah" was still as wet as she had been earlier -- there was definitely no need for lube -- and then slid inside her in one smooth motion. "Hannah" gasped. Monica reached down and grabbed the back of her hair, pulling her head up to kiss her. She began fucking her, hard and fast, listening intently to the sounds she was making as she did.

Just as she seemed to be getting close, Monica stopped. She slid down the bed, kissing down her collar bone and then her sternum, making short excursions around her breasts, before making her way across her stomach and then further down still.

The moment Monica's tongue made contact with her clit, "Hannah" bucked upwards involuntarily.

Monica licked her until she was close to an orgasm, then went back to fucking her with the strap-on. She alternated between the two, stimulating "Hannah" in different ways in such a way that she never quite came.

Eventually, as Monica was buried between her thighs once more, "Hannah" moaned, "Please."

"Well, since you asked nicely," Monica said, and intensified her licking. Soon, "Hannah" was coming, hard, her legs thrashing around Monica and the handcuffs jingling as her arms tried to do the same.

She kept licking until "Hannah" said "Stop, stop, stop, it's too much." When she did, she crawled back up the bed to kiss her long and hard, making sure she could taste herself on Monica's lips, before finally untying her, and then removing the strap-on.

"Hannah" curled herself up and Monica found herself cuddling her instinctively.

As they lay there, though, Monica began to find herself wondering what had just happened. Both of them had been equally turned on, and the situation had had a lot to do with it. But was there more to it than that for the other girl? Was there something about living undercover for so long that meant she needed to maintain the role even when she _didn't_ need to maintain it?

For the first time in a long time, she found herself thinking about the Skrulls she had met long ago: about the way they had been able to "sim" people, to disappear completely into a role. And yet, how amazing they had been when they had been their true selves.

"What's your name?" Monica asked eventually.

"Whatever you want it to be, baby," came the languorous reply. She turned round to face her.

She was smiling like the cat who got the cream. Understandable enough, Monica thought, after having your world so thoroughly rocked, but-- "I'm serious," she said. "What's your name?"

Her expression changed, frowning. Not wanting to unblur the lines? Or still worried about the risk?

"I promise, it's secure."

Her expression softened again. "Sharon," she said quietly.

"Sharon," Monica said, trying it out in her mouth. It didn't feel quite right, somehow; after so long thinking of her as "Agent 13" or "Hannah", she realised she hadn't actually let herself even speculate on what her real name might be.

And then suddenly, she -- Sharon -- was kissing her, with an intensity that was similar in scale but entirely different in kind from the way they had kissed while she'd been restrained. A kiss that craved a human connection with her true self.

"It's good to meet you, Sharon," Monica said.

"It's good to be met," Sharon said, then promptly fell asleep.

* * *

The next time they saw each other, it was definitely "Hannah", not Sharon. They were in the back room of a club that was either one of the gang's side ventures, or at least knew exactly who they were and didn't argue when told to clear a room at zero notice.

The two women from the bar were there, along with four men -- two stocky, uncommunicative, standing on either side of their room with their arms crossed; one bearded and not in the best of shape; and the last, who seemed to be in charge, tall, wiry and jumping around the place as though he was high on at least three different things simultaneously.

"Are we sure we trust her?" he said to Sharon.

" _I_ trust her, Carl," Sharon said. "And it's not like we have a lot of choice, if we want to get this done."

"Doesn't matter if we trust her or not," one of the women, who Monica had had introduced to her as Cally, said. She pulled a brown envelope out of her leather jacket and slid it across the table to Monica.

Monica opened it. The photos were of her and Sharon. On the street, at the club, heading into her apartment -- but nothing more after that, she noted with relief. "S.H.I.E.L.D. is an equal opportunity employer," she said.

"Funny," Carl said. "I like funny." He leaned in close to Monica and bared his teeth -- what few he had left -- at her. "The point, sweetheart, isn't that she's a _she_ , it's that she's a criminal." He waved his finger around in the air a few times, a gesture encompassing the whole room. "You may have gathered that all of us in this room are criminals. _All_ of us."

"I get it," Monica said. "I don't come through, I'm at _more_ risk than if the job comes off successfully."

Carl retreated back to the other side of the table. "Funny _and_ smart. Good combination." He looked at Sharon. "She's a keeper."

Monica felt revolted by having their relationship -- however unreal it might or might not be -- approved of by this guy, but she swallowed once, hard, and got on with the job. "So, how are you going to do it?"

"Foxy?" Carl said.

Foxy turned out to be the bearded guy; when he spoke, it was softly, but everyone was listening. Monica could tell that they knew he knew his stuff. He had a laptop on which he showed schematics of the facility. They had gaps, though; they showed only what could be worked out through what was visible from the street or the areas that visiting non-S.H.I.E.L.D. contractors had access to. Which meant that some of them had been in the building, possibly months before.

Monica listened to the plan -- it was sound, as long as they did indeed have someone on the inside. She added a bit more detail to their maps, warned them about the anti-tamper devices fitted onto the scanners.

* * *

The hardest part turned out to be getting herself onto the night shift; her team would still be on days for the next three weeks, before doing their bimonthly fortnight of night shifts, and she knew from long experience that Agent Garber was a stickler for each and every procedure in the book, and the book was insistent that breaking the pattern would lead to potential underperformance as a result of tiredness. But she also knew that Agent Garber looked the other way when agents needed to swap shifts around between themselves, so she just needed to find someone on the night shift who could use a night off. That was where the problem arose; they were all just fine. Eventually she had to persuade Varga that she needed him to cover for her the following day because of a doctor's appointment she couldn't miss. He was a little confused at first by the idea that she couldn't simply go to the medics on site, but after a sufficiently long glare from Monica he eventually came up with some reason that satisfied him as to why she wouldn't want to. She didn't really want to think what it might have been.

At lunch, Dr Jensen was looking at her as oddly as ever in the canteen at lunchtime.

Monica hurried her way through her meal so that she could clear her tray away at the same time. Monica kept pace with her as she walked towards the elevators. Once they were safely out of anyone else's earshot, she said, "Lightspeed."

Dr Jensen gave no sign of even having heard her.

* * *

It was 2:13am when the van pulled up outside. Monica was patrolling the corridor facing the road, as planned; anyone else would have raised the alarm at seeing a vehicle stop outside the facility unexpectedly at this time of night.

By 2:17am, the gang had all got out, carrying their equipment between them, and the van was driving off again. Monica caught sight of Sharon, recognising her in the dark more by the way she carried herself than anything else.

At 2:20am, Monica had returned to the main security station in the lobby. Agent Greenwood was still making his way back from his hourly check of the lab itself. Now was the time; she started prodding at the control screen, activating different aspects of the system nearly at random, although ensuring that the outer doors opened as part of it. Sharon and the others crept through, each of them nodding at Monica in turn as they slipped past in the dead areas she was creating in the CCTV by resetting the cameras.

Greenwood made it back at 2:23am.

"What the hell's going on?"

"No idea," Monica said, still pressing buttons, though now trying to make it look as though she was trying to fix things. "The system just started going haywire."

"Let me see," he said. Greenwood was one of the best security staff on the technical side; it would look weird if she didn't let him take a look. She slid out of the way on her wheeled chair and let him take a look. "I can't see any ..." He brought up menu after menu, but none showed anything wrong; natural enough, since nothing was wrong. "I think we need to reboot the whole system," he said.

"Sure," Monica said. This was all part of the plan: while the system was rebooting, it wouldn't respond to anyone using shaped charge explosives to blast through the final biometric checkpoint.

Greenwood had already ordered the restart when a grainy image of Carl and Patty flashed up on the screen, moments before it went black.

He turned around in his chair to look up at Monica.

"For what it's worth, I'm really sorry about this," Monica said. She grabbed his hands and placed them behind the back of the chair, then quickly wrapped the duct tape she'd hidden earlier around them several times.

"Rambeau, you'll--" She added another piece of duct tape over his mouth, making sure she didn't cover his nose, and then wheeled him over to the elevator. She pushed him in and hit the button for the basement.

A few moments later, the gang came running past, the two big guys -- Monica still hadn't learned their names -- carrying the prototype between them. Sharon grabbed her hand and she started running too.

They got outside just before the rebooted security system realised what had happened in its short absence. Sirens began blaring, lights flashing insistently.

The van returned, having circled the block repeatedly while they'd been inside. Cally jumped up and pulled open the rear doors; the prototype was loaded first, and then everyone jumped inside.

"Where are we going, boss?" came a voice from the front -- the other woman who'd been there at the bar that first night.

"The buyer's going to call me," Carl said. "Keep driving. Stay off the main roads."

They sat down in an uneasy silence. Monica could see Foxy looking at the prototype, wondering what it was for. She'd never seen it this close before either, she realised -- it was always hooked up to so much machinery in Jensen's lab that it was hard to tell exactly what it was. But now, separated from all that, it -- or rather, the dummy -- was like a glowing pyramid, prismatic patterns dancing across its surface like the rainbows on a slick of oil. It was a very convincing replica, as far as Monica could see.

Monica was sat next to Sharon. They didn't say anything, but their hands rested against one another as they grabbed onto the makeshift seats.

Eventually, Carl's cellphone rang noisily and he stood up to answer it, even as the van continued to swerve around the side streets. "Yeah," he said. And then, "Yeah" several more times. "We're on our way," he said after a longer pause -- presumably being given the address. "Head to the docks!" he shouted to the driver. Then, back on the call, he said, "Two?" And as he did, he looked straight at Monica and Sharon.

"Well, this is interesting," he said once he'd hung up.

"What's interesting, boss?" Sharon asked.

"My buyer gave me some very interesting information," he said, and his eyes were darting around; too late, Monica realised that he'd been signalling to his muscle guys to grab hold of Monica and Sharon. They found themselves thrust into the middle of the van, just inches from Carl's face. "Apparently there are two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents here with us," he told the others.

"I never liked Foxy," Sharon said, but all that got her was a twist in her arm.

"You two got anything to say for yourselves?" Carl sneered.

"You're all under arrest," Monica said.

"You're outnumbered six to two," Carl observed.

"Six dumbasses to two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents," Monica said. "Like I said, you're all under arrest."

She nodded to Sharon, who grinned back. Simultaneously, they both leant as far forwards as they could, then ducked backwards so that the guys who had been holding them toppled forwards towards Carl. They smacked their heads on the side of the van and fell to the ground, moaning.

Carl pulled out his gun and started waving it around dangerously. Cally got out her piece too.

"Don't shoot!" Foxy said. "The package is unstable."

Cally thumped the back of the driver's compartment. "Stop!" she yelled.

The van screeched to a halt, and they were all flung forward. Monica grabbed hold of Sharon to stop her smashing her head against the front wall, then kicked Carl's gun out of his hand, so that he couldn't think better of his decision not to use it. Sharon, meanwhile, launched herself at Foxy, quickly subduing him.

Monica stood in the middle of the now stationary van, back to back with Sharon, assessing the situation. The pyramid had slid forwards as they had stopped, and was now pressing against her feet. She almost felt as though it was calling to her. Which was weird, in any situation, but especially if it was supposed to be a fake.

That was when she noticed that Carl had his hand pressed against it. Was he feeling it too?

"Let's see what this thing can do," he said, then grimaced as _something_ flowed up his arm, his veins seeming to glow with strange energy. When his eyes lit up with something like a lightning crackle, he let out a laugh that sounded utterly inhuman.

It was a split second decision, and Monica took it. She surrendered to the call, and felt the same force surge through her, up her leg, filling her entire body. Where the power came from, she didn't know. Why the pyramid was the real thing, she didn't know. But she didn't need to know. She was _power_ , power that wanted to be used. _How_ didn't matter. How depended entirely on instinct. Carl's instincts were all too clear. But Monica's instincts told her to protect. Protect Sharon, protect anyone else who needed it from whatever Carl had become.

They grappled, the energy surging between them as they fought, as though it was trying to decide which of them should possess all of it. Sharon made a break for it, quickly securing Cally and her friend who were too distracted by the fight to stop her.

Monica felt more and more powerful, as though she would have been able to throw Carl clean through the side of the van if he hadn't been charged up himself. The energy from the pyramid was taking over, filling her up--

No, she realised, it was _her_. The energy was attracted to her sense of purpose. Carl was an empty vessel; pouring itself into him would only make it leak out. She was already full, but the energy didn't work that way: her fullness could be multiplied.

The remaining energy surged out of Carl, and he was back to being human again. He pushed open the back door of the van and ran off into the night.

"Are you all right?" Sharon said.

"Huh," she said, looking down at her hands. "I guess I did learn to glow after all." It was in that moment that she realised that her instincts, that had served her so well, had been shaped by the example of her Auntie Carol as much as anything else.

"You're floating," Sharon said. "As well as glowing."

"I am?"

"Just a little."

She tried to propel herself upwards, but merely succeeded in coming awkwardly back down to the floor. Maybe she couldn't work miracles just yet.

"It was supposed to be a dummy," Monica said. "What in the hell--"

"You fools!" came a voice from outside, heard through the still-open door.

Monica and Sharon climbed down from the van. "Who's this?" Sharon asked as the figure got closer. She had a gun held out in front of her, but it was wobbling in the single hand she was holding it, as though she was unused to it, and emotionally unstable.

"Dr Jensen?" Monica said. "You were the-- Wait, what were you?"

"I was the buyer, you ... you unpredictable element!"

"You hired us to steal your own research?" Sharon said.

"S.H.I.E.L.D. refused to let me test on live subjects," Jensen said. "I knew that something like this was possible--"

"And you wanted it for yourself, didn't you?" said Monica. The energy was telling her that; it could sense Jensen's hunger for it. "I don't think it would have worked."

"What do you know about it? You were only-- I should have refused to go along with Fury's plan. But I thought it would be safer to appear compliant--"

"He knew something was up at the facility," Monica said slowly, thinking back to the conversation she'd had weeks before. "But it was Garber he didn't trust." She laughed.

"I'm going to--" Jensen began.

Sharon grabbed the gun out of her hand before she could even start to aim it properly. "No, you're under arrest too."

* * *

"This is such a tourist thing to do," Monica said, not unkindly.

She was walking across the Golden Gate Bridge with her mom, Sharon, and the man who Sharon insisted on calling "Director Fury" but Monica still couldn't help thinking of as "Uncle Nick". She was keeping the outward manifestation of the energy to a minimum; in the last few days, she had been learning a lot about her capabilities. They were nowhere near on the same scale as Auntie Carol's, at least not yet, but she was finding the adjustment a fun process. Sharon had helped with that.

"I don't care," Mom said. "I'm just glad of the opportunity to spend time with my daughter." The "while I can" went unspoken, but she turned to Fury. "What's going to happen to her?"

"We have special programmes for ... extra-normal agents," Fury said.

"And you want to make her one of their ... test subjects?" Mom said.

"I want to make her one of their leaders," Fury said with a grin. "And you, Agent 13," he went on. "You acquitted yourself very well. I might have some more assignments for you in the very near future."

"I'm happy to serve in whatever way I can," Sharon said, glancing in Monica's direction.

Monica made sure that neither Fury nor her mom didn't see the smile on her face.


End file.
